Riptide

by Paul Levine

  The plaintiff’s lawyer, Stuart Zeman, leaned back and dozed. Manicured and immaculately groomed, he wore a fifteen-hundred-dollar suit of beige silk. The wages of representing the widowed and crippled. His client, a beefy Air Force sergeant with a brush cut and tiny ears, tugged at the choking collar on his dress-blue shirt and loosened the regulation knot in his solid black tie. They were gathered in the thirty-second-floor deposition room at Harman & Fox, a hallowed, dark place where many thousands of hours have been billed at enormous rates.

  The bearded pathologist paused and chewed on his cold pipe. His testimony, delivered in deliberate, measured cadences, resembled a lecture by a well-prepared professor to a class of nitwits. “Diethylstilbestrol is synthetic estrogen, commonly called DES. Thirty years ago, doctors prescribed the drug to pregnant women to prevent miscarriage. A generation later, the women’s daughters began dying from cancer. Instead of protecting the female offspring, technology was killing them. That’s what happened to Gladys Ferguson … the late Mrs. Gladys Ferguson.” Doc Riggs nodded across the conference table in the direction of Sergeant Claude Ferguson, USAF, the widower and father of a baby boy.

  “But how can you be sure of that?” Winston Hopkins whined. The young lawyer had removed his suit coat to reveal paisley suspenders against his white-on-white custom-made shirt. The left cuff was emblazoned with a monogram in blue script “WPH.” Fighting the boredom, Lassiter scribbled imagined middle names across a legal pad. Percival… Pilkington … Plimpton. “Her cervical cancer could have been caused by a host of things, could it not?” Hopkins asked.

  Dr. Riggs gave the young lawyer a kind, forgiving smile. “Given the history of Mrs. Ferguson’s mother using DES, given Mrs. Ferguson’s age and the fact that she acquired cervical cancer following childbirth, statistically there can be little doubt. I have concluded to a reasonable degree of medical certainty that the DES was the causa causans, the initiating cause of the cancer. But for the DES, she would not have contracted cancer, and hence, she would not have died.”

  The sergeant’s face was puffy. A single tear gathered, then rolled down a cheek. Seeming not to notice, Winston Hopkins stormed ahead. “But for the DES, Mrs. Ferguson might never have existed, correct?”

  “How’s that?” Dr. Riggs asked.

  “Her mother might have had a miscarriage without the drug.”

  “No sir!” Riggs yanked the pipe from his mouth and gestured toward the young lawyer. “That’s the irony here, the damned tragic irony. DES never worked, never prevented miscarriage. If a woman was going to carry to full term, she’d do it with or without the drug. Gladys Ferguson would have been born, fine and dandy, hale and healthy, without that damned DES. As a drug, it was totally useless except to poison one’s female issue.”

  Jake Lassiter looked up from his doodling. If they had been in a courtroom, the spectators would have oohed and aahed, the reporters would have scribbled notes, and Marvin the Maven would have smacked his gums. It was one of those moments when a witness drives a stake through the heart of your case. Give Doc Charlie Riggs a second chance, and he’ll give that stake another whack.

  “One moment, please,” Hopkins said, pretending to review his notes while trying to regroup without peeing on his Italian kid leather loafers. If the kid took on Doc Riggs again, the savvy old coroner would probably spank him and send him to bed without his dinner.

  A lifetime of experience on the witness stand, thirty-two years as medical examiner of Dade County, now retired and living in a fishing cabin on the edge of the Everglades, Doc Riggs was as sharp as ever. He had dueled with the city’s best criminal defense lawyers, savvy street fighters who could eviscerate a weak or confused witness. But they never got to Charlie Riggs. He had never botched an autopsy. Never lost a tissue sample, never failed to weigh, measure, or test the right organs, fluids, and gristle. A small man with dark, unkempt hair and a full beard, Charlie Riggs looked at the world through eyes that twinkled with a mixture of boyish delight and lethal wisdom.

  Jake Lassiter wondered if Winston Hopkins was smart enough to shut up. Lassiter looked at the deposition scorecard, Form B83-184 in the firm’s parlance. The product of endless partners’ meetings, the scorecard had three categories: Preparation, Poise, and Thoroughness.

  “PPT,” Managing Partner Marshall Tuttle formally announced at one law firm meeting, as if the term were inspired by genius. Lassiter figured preparation meant ripping off a checklist of questions from the computerized form files, poise required equal portions of arrogance and callousness, and thoroughness could be demonstrated by asking the same question three times or until the opposing lawyer began snoring, whichever came first. Lassiter cast the dissenting vote, saying his grading system would use Balls, Brains, and a touch of Humanity.

  “How do you measure balls?” the managing partner had sniffed.

  “If you gotta ask, you ain’t got ‘em,” Lassiter said, a remark he figured cost him ten grand in the pig pool, the year-end division of profits.

  Winston P. Hopkins in plucked at his suspenders and flipped through his yellow pad. He had colorless eyes, a weak jaw, and hair that was thinning before its time. He shot a look at Lassiter, who gave him no signals, then back to Doc Riggs, who waited patiently. Across the table, Sergeant Ferguson stretched his thick neck and cracked his knuckles, one at a time, the sound of cartridges ejecting from a Beretta 9 mm.

  “You’re being paid for this performance today, aren’t you, Dr. Riggs?” Hopkins asked, finally.

  Stuart Zeman emerged from his postlunch nap, examined his diamond-encrusted Piaget, yawned, and swiveled toward the court reporter. “Objection to the form …”

  “Ill rephrase the question,” Hopkins said, with just the hint of a sneer. “You’re being paid for your time, Doctor?”

  “As you are,” Riggs said, pleasantly.

  Lassiter hoped the twit would shut up soon. He knew Hopkins was a weasel but didn’t figure him stupid.

  “And how much is the plaintiff paying for your testimony?”

  “For my time, young man, Mr. Zeman offered to pay me two hundred fifty dollars an hour. Because of my feelings about DES and the gross irresponsibility of your client in marketing it, I agreed to accept only my expenses plus an Orvis graphite fly-casting rod.”

  “What… what… are you telling us you’re doing this for practically nothing?”

  “To a fly-fisherman, an Orvis rod is hardly that.”

  Hopkins’s laugh was an annoying snort. “Dr. Riggs, really now, do you expect us to believe that you’re studying medical records, reviewing the written authorities, testifying at deposition today and then at trial, and all for a fishing pole?”

  Why not just walk onto 1-95 in front of a semi, Lassiter thought.

  “Homo doctus in se semper divitias habet,” Charlie Riggs said, and the court reporter grimaced.

  Hopkins swallowed. “Huh?”

  “A learned man always has wealth within himself.”

  Another minute of paper shuffling, then Hopkins shot the French cuffs on his left sleeve, ostentatiously letting his eighteen-carat watchband catch the glow from the recessed lighting, and said, “Inasmuch as we still have another deposition to take, I have nothing further at this time, subject to the right to recall Dr. Riggs prior to trial.”

  Charlie Riggs bounded out of the conference room on short bowed legs, and Sergeant Ferguson moved into the hot seat.

  Lassiter scooped up his scorecard and followed Riggs into the corridor. Once out of earshot of the conference room, he said, “I wish you were on our side of the table, Charlie.”

  “You’re too late and you’re on the wrong side, Jake. DES, for God’s sake, one of the chemical catastrophes of the century. How can you even defend the manufacturer?”

  “It’s my job,” Lassiter said, wearily.

  “Some job.”

  “Funny, that’s what Cindy said the other day.”

  Riggs grumbled his disapproval. “It isn’t you, Jake. Your heart�
��s not in it. A man has to find himself. Now, take me. What if I’d have gone into a private pathology practice, just looking at damn slides all day. Probably would’ve made more money than poking around in stiffs all these years, but would I have had the satisfaction, would I have nailed the woman who laced her husband’s meat pie with paraquat? Or the sulfuric acid murderer? Nothing left but the teeth, but that was enough for a corpus delicti. Or the insulin overdose in the hospital with no injection puncture on the body?”

  “I remember,” Lassiter said. “You were the only one who thought to look at the intravenous tube.”

  “Hard to miss under the microscope, a hole made by a syringe. Then I checked the spinal fluid. Sugar count way too low. The attending nurse had a locker stashed full of insulin and a psychiatric history as long as your arm.”

  Jake Lassiter smiled. “You’re the best canoe maker… sorry, coroner, this town has ever had. No one can speak for the dead like you.”

  Doc Riggs gave Lassiter an affectionate shoulder squeeze.

  “I remember when you saved my ass in Dr. Salisbury’s murder trial,” Lassiter continued, “figuring out what ruptured Philip Corrigan’s aorta.”

  “Kind of you to mention it.”

  “My adrenaline was pumping then, Charlie. Just like the old days in the PD’s office.”

  Charlie Riggs took the cold pipe from his mouth and jabbed it toward Lassiter’s chest. “You were alive then. Bring it back, Jake, that same fervor. Even when we were on opposite sides, I always respected you. You defended vigorously, hell, you were tough, but you never manufactured evidence or suborned perjury. You were also a great cross-examiner.”

  “A left-handed compliment, Charlie. Telling me my life’s not worth a hot damn anymore.”

  “Someday you’ll thank me for helping you out. Defending DES cases, for crying out loud! What’s next, representing asbestos manufacturers?”

  Charlie Riggs tamped some fresh tobacco into his pipe and struggled to light it. “I’m sorry to be so tough on you, Jake. It’s only because we’re friends. Now, better get back in there. That little prick — doctus cum libro, nothing but book learning — is liable to say anything.”

  That was it, Lassiter thought. Winston Prick Hopkins.

  * * *

  When Lassiter eased back into the Brazilian leather chair, he found Winston Hopkins trying to chisel away at the widower’s damage claim.

  “Prior to her death, weren’t you and your wife contemplating divorce?” Hopkins asked in the smart-ass tone young lawyers mistake for toughness.

  The sergeant’s eyes shot to his own lawyer, then to Hopkins. “No, of course not. We have a baby.”

  “But you sought marriage counseling?”

  “We sought counseling from our minister after Gladys became ill.”

  “For marital problems.”

  “No. She was depressed. We needed to — “

  “To discuss a divorce.”

  The sergeant’s closely shaved cheeks flushed just below his ears, and the muscles of his jaws tensed. “Hell no!”

  Stuart Zeman, wide awake now, slapped the table and leaned toward the court reporter, who was bent over her silent machine. “Objection. I think we’ve heard just about enough on that subject, Mr. Hopkins. Please move on.”

  “Well, Mr. Zeman, your client here claims a ton of money for mental anguish at his wife’s death, and if I can demonstrate that this marriage was washed up, that’s a relevant line of inquiry …”

  Lassiter figured he should tell the jerk there’s a difference between being aggressive and being an asshole, but he didn’t have time. The sergeant had a lot of quick for a big man. He flew across the conference table and grabbed the Ivy Leaguer by his noodle neck. There was that moment of disbelief when everything stops dead, Lassiter watching Hopkins’s eyes bulge, the sergeant’s hands — powerful, working-guy hands — squeezing, then the moment when Lassiter could have stepped in but didn’t, silently hoping the sergeant would extract Hopkins’s Adam’s apple with his bare hands. Then, and it all took no more than five seconds, Lassiter moved, coming up behind them. They were wedged into a corner of the room, Hopkins bent backward, his buttocks hanging over a rubber plant, his head being smacked repeatedly — thwack, thwack — against the herringbone fabric of the deposition room wall.

  Lassiter put one hand on the sergeant’s meaty shoulder and squeezed hard, just to let him know he was there. “Okay, fun’s over. Let’s everyone sit down.”

  The sergeant let go with his right hand, and Hopkins toppled into the rubber plant, a gurgling sound stuck in his throat. Lassiter relaxed and never saw it coming, a lightning Yoko Hijiate, the sergeant’s elbow smashing into his ribs from a foot away. The pain shot through Lassiter’s chest, and he gasped.

  The sergeant turned to face Lassiter head-on. “You peckerhead lawyers, with all your fancy words and fancy cars and fancy watches …”

  Lassiter was holding his side, sucking in shallow breaths. “Sergeant, I drive a twenty-six-year-old convertible with leaky canvas, my vocabulary is limited, and my watch is forty bucks, though it’s good to a depth of a hundred feet. I’m just an ex-second-string linebacker trying to do my best in an imperfect world.”

  The sergeant laughed, but there was no pleasure behind it. “Linebackers! Standing up straight, roaming around like they was posing for the cheerleaders. Not like in the pits. Real men gouging, cursing, eating bucketfuls of mud, ending up with your face in some nose guard’s crotch.”

  “Given a choice,” Lassiter said, “I’ll take the cheerleaders.”

  The sergeant growled and dropped into a three-point stance, his thick right hand sinking into the plush, burgundy carpet. “Strong side tackle. Blew out a knee my second year at Clemson. Coulda been All-ACC. Maybe it’s time for a comeback. C’mon. Let’s go.”

  “Nah, I always hated practice.”

  “C’mon. You know the one-on-one, nutcracker drill.”

  “Sure, but it’s done with a ballcarrier behind the offensive lineman. The linebacker plays off the block and makes the tackle.”

  “Shitface there can carry the ball,” the sergeant said, moving his head in the direction of the prone Winston Hopkins.

  Hopkins whined something unintelligible.

  Lassiter said, “Winnie, want to grab your dainty Italian briefcase and pretend it’s a ball?”

  Hopkins shook his head and mouthed the word “no.”

  “He’s taking a medical redshirt,” Lassiter said. “Probably has fumbleitis anyway.”

  The sergeant was still in a three-point stance, head up, waiting for some imaginary quarterback to call the signals. “Then it’s just you and me, Mister Linebacker.”

  Lassiter studied him, planning to keep talking until the sergeant returned to Planet Earth. But the man’s eyes were glazed and his breath was coming hard. A little extra baggage around the waist, maybe 250, but a meaty chest and granite shoulders, arms straining against his government-issue shirt, epaulets stretched tight.

  Lassiter moved close and stood facing him, legs spread, arms hanging slightly in front of his body, knees flexed. No one cheered.

  “Let the record reflect we have taken a short recess,” Lassiter said to the court reporter, who looked at her watch, and dutifully recorded the time of the break.

  “Jake, I don’t think you should …” Stuart Zeman was saying, fiddling with a Lady Justice cuff link of gold, black onyx, and diamonds.

  “Fifty-two, gap tough rotate,” Lassiter heard himself say, signaling a short yardage defense.

  “Set, hut-hut-hut…” the sergeant intoned.

  “Stand ‘em up!” a voice thundered in Jake Lassiter’s mind, Coach Shula shouting instructions from a distant sideline.

  “Hut-hut,” the sergeant barked, then fired out straight and low.

  Lassiter squared up and delivered a shoulder-high blow with open palms. His wrists howled with pain, but he stood the sergeant straight for a moment. It wouldn’t last. Using his weight adva
ntage, the sergeant ducked low, put a shoulder into Lassiter’s gut, and slammed him into the cushioned wall with a thud.

  Lassiter grunted, shook it off, and said, “Okay, you win.”

  “Again,” the sergeant said.

  Zeman groaned. Hopkins whimpered. Lassiter shrugged as if to say why not. This time, the sergeant fired out and hooked an arm around Lassiter’s elbow — offensive holding — and was about to drive him in the general direction of Key Largo when Lassiter slid to the right, caught the sergeant off-balance, and slung him sideways against the wall. The crash left two Frederic Remington originals dangling cockeyed.

  Sergeant Ferguson picked himself up. “Enough bullshit. Hand-to-hand, commando style.” He spread his legs wide, bent his knees, and put his hands on his hips. The Kiba-dachi, an attack position.

  “Not one of those,” Lassiter said, shaking his head. “What ever happened to good old American punchin’ and wrasslin’?”

  From somewhere on the floor Lassiter heard Hopkins squeaking. It sounded like son of a bitch the way Donald Duck might say it.

  “Now, Claude,” Stuart Zeman was saying. “This will complicate the settlement conference.”

  The sergeant gestured in the general direction of his lawyer’s carotid artery. “Shove off, Zeman. You’re one of them. You want forty percent of what I get. I’ll give you forty percent of the big one’s nose and forty percent of the little shit’s tongue.”

  “C’mon, Sarge,” Lassiter said. “Let’s talk this over.”

  “Except talk isn’t cheap for you jaybirds, is it?”

  “Hey, I’m on your side. Let’s just — “

  Ferguson feinted with a Kizami-zuki jab, then followed up with a Oi-zuki lunge punch that caught Lassiter in the solar plexus. He doubled over, gasped, then came up hard, catching Ferguson’s chin with the top of his head. The sergeant staggered back a step, then the two men tied up like a couple of professional wrestlers.

  The sergeant took a step forward and Lassiter a step back; the sergeant moved his right foot to the side, and Lassiter moved the same direction with his left.